


Strict Discipline and Rigorous Training

by shadownaga



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 09:31:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19373968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadownaga/pseuds/shadownaga
Summary: Everyone knows that Metamorphagi children are difficult. Harry thinks otherwise.





	Strict Discipline and Rigorous Training

**Author's Note:**

> A small drabble that I wrote in an hour. Unbetaed, un-proofread, if you see a mistake point it out. I love comments. I should be writing my other fic instead of this.

It's said that metamophagus children can be among the most difficult to raise, particularly before they have learned to control their abilities.

 

_How to Parent a Changing Child:  A Guide to Young Metamorphagi_ says that metamorphagus children can be spiteful, dramatic, and have a tendency to run away, therefore they must have strict discipline at home and rigorous training for their abilties.

Harry disagrees with this.

 

Teddy is young still, just turned one, and Andromeda has reluctantly turned over custody of him to Harry, as his godfather.

 

A two bedroom flat off of Diagon Alley is their home, as Harry is still reluctant to investigate the old Potter estate, and Grimmauld Place is in no way child friendly. Filled with more baby toys and clothes and furniture than Harry's own things, it is here where Harry has learned that _How to Parent a Changing Child_ is full of shit, and so are old witches.

 

_Da_ and _bye_ and _no_ make up the majority of Teddy's vocabulary, but Harry is finding that he doesn't need words to understand his kid- dark, wild hair and bright green eyes accompany a happy cry of _Da!_ and pale, dove grey hair can only serve to make a stringent _no_ all the more clear. A shifting kalidescope of bright colors showcase delight in his favorite meals, and Harry's more than once caught his godson a few inches taller, holding onto a piece of furniture which should be out of his reach.

And as Teddy grows, so does his expression.

An explosion from outside, an excited child's accidental magic, startled him into popping his ears out of existence - and Harry watched as he did it again, a bit more purposefully, when the ward he'd set to warn him of smoke and burning food went off and Harry was searching for his wand.

 

He watched as his nose grew, just a bit, when they walked into the bakery down the street- and how he clapped his hands over it, crying out in almost pain when they entered the apothecary next.

 

Pupils enlarged to inhuman dimensions in the dark recesses of Gringotts, only to be burned upon reentry to the sunlit world above.

 

Harry grew up with his Aunt Petunia, locked in a cupboard. Harry knows what it's like to be overwhelmed. He remembers the deafening roar of the trains the first time he visited the tube, the burbing of his tongue the first time he tasted the leftovers of Dudley's curry out of his bowl before he washed it. He remembers the blistering pain when he was shoved from the pitch black of his cupboard into the blazing summer sun.

 

And so Harry knows what to do.

 

He watches, carefully, a vigilant parent. When he is young, still, there are bubble head and sun screening charms always at the tip of his tongue, prompting Teddy to remember himself. They stop before they change environments, a quiet conversation, _is there anything you need to change before we go?_

 

By the time he is four, it is Teddy who is stopping them, brow furrows as he takes stock of himself.

 

By the time he is six, he remembers, usually, but Harry still watches. By now the bubble head and noise canceling and sun screening charms come to him as easily as parseltongue, magic flowing through his fingers without a word spoken.

 

By ten Teddy is shifting with ease at will, not merely at the whim of his emotions, and he is experimenting. Ears to match his pet Crup's, a nose like an Erumpent, and Harry's even spotted tiny horns on his forehead once. Harry doesn't need to be so watchful.

 

It's years before a bubble-head charm is cast again in their house, their small flat above a side street of Diagon Alley, because even though Harry has gone through his families properties and estate since he got Teddy, all those years ago, this flat is home. It's not cast by Harry, though he's sure the spell would still come naturally to him.

 

It's cast by Teddy, tall and turquoise-haired as he whispers the charm over his giggling baby girl when the smoke ward clangs because even after all these years Harry still is not the greatest cook, and Harry knows he did something right.


End file.
